Tag: cybersecurity

The Seidenberg School has long been committed to promoting cybersecurity education through a variety of programs and activities. GenCyber, a workshop hosted by Pace and Seidenberg this month, is one of the many ways in which the Seidenberg School has contributed to inspiring the next generation of cybersecurity professionals.

The workshop is a prestigious cybersecurity education program funded jointly by the National Science Foundation and the National Security Agency, designed to promote cybersecurity education at the K-12 level. The 2015 Pace GenCyber was designed specifically for high school teachers, and Pace was one of only ten universities nationwide selected to host a teacher workshop in 2015. We welcomed 22 participants, mostly in STEM fields, but not exclusively so, from all over the U.S. including Washington, Florida, Colorado, and Iowa.

The workshop took place at Pace University’s Pleasantville campus, and was spearheaded by Professor and IT WEST Department Chairperson Li-Chiou Chen and Director of Assessment Andreea Cotoranu. The two organized the program from activity design, to instruction, and everything in between. Lectures for the workshop were then delivered by professors of high esteem within the Seidenberg faculty including Li-Chiou Chen, PhD, Charles Tappert, PhD, Meikang Qiu, PhD, and Darren Hayes, DPS with assistance from some of their talented doctoral students. Jigar Jadav, Computer Science teacher at Mamaroneck High-School, and Pace Computer Science PhD student, provided invaluable input on high school instruction and lesson plan development. Moreover, an orchestra of Pace and Seidenberg students and staff ensured that all logistics worked smoothly. According to Andreea Cotoranu, “this was truly a team effort.”

Throughout the two weeks of the workshop, the teachers dove into a variety of integrated lectures, labs, resource sharing, curriculum development activities, pedagogy, and community building that all focused on different aspects of four main pillars in cybersecurity including cryptography, network security, access control/biometrics and computer forensics. The workshop also introduced Design Thinking pedagogical strategies for problem solving, a student-centered approach to teaching that fosters learning through project development (brainstorming, creating, doing, etc.) in lieu of traditional lecture-style teaching methods.

Westchester Magazine quoted participant Virginia Nalbandian, a Pleasantville High School mathematics and computer science teacher, as saying, “the workshop has inspired me as a teacher to return to my classroom and inspire my students. And this is what education should ultimately be about.” Sponsors, participants, and organizers all feel hugely satisfied by the workshop’s success.

Everyone involved in GenCyber left the program with a positive, enthusiastic mindset about going forth and integrating cybersecurity in their curricula. The feedback from both participants and sponsors (NSA/NSF), has been excellent, and we are thrilled with the outcome! The organizers and sponsors are already discussing the plans for the return of the workshop next summer, and we look forward to hear how the project will grow.

The Seidenberg School is to receive a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) totaling two and a half million dollars. The grant is in support of the project “A Multiple Pathway Approach to CyberCorps – Renewal,” which is directed by Dr. Li-Chiou Chen, Dr. Joseph Ryan (the Dyson School), Dr. Darren Hayes, and Prof. Andreea Cotoranu.

This project extends the CyberCorps: Scholarship for Service (SFS) program at Pace University. The Pace CyberCorps program received about $1 million from the NSF between 2010 and 2015, and the new NSF award will bring an additional $2.5 million to advance Pace’s program over the next five years between 2015 and 2020.

The Seidenberg School has been awarded the grant in order to support 3-4 cybersecurity scholars every year, assist student research in cybersecurity, and direct several outreach programs – including running the GenCyber cybersecurity teachers’ workshop which concluded recently. The grant will support eligible cybersecurity scholars who are current Pace students, transfer students from community colleges, and new graduate students from other universities. All scholars are required to fulfill core curriculum requirements in both cybersecurity and mathematics, as well as interdisciplinary curriculum requirements in either criminal justice, business administration, or another discipline. The scholars will also be expected to complete research projects and professional development activities. The interdisciplinary academic preparation will allow the graduates to conduct cybersecurity tasks in a specialty area such as information assurance compliance and auditing, network security administration, digital forensics, etc.

Cybersecurity is one of our key initiatives, and we want to encourage students to learn about this field as it’s not only crucial for securing our digital information over the Internet, but it’s an ever-growing area where employment opportunities abound. The National Science Foundation grant will allow Seidenberg and Pace University to continue its efforts as a center for cybersecurity research and education.

October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM) and the Seidenberg School has joined with the Department of Homeland Security and its partners across the country to highlight the importance of cybersecurity and online safety.

As part of this effort, Seidenberg first-year students in Dr. Bernice Houle’s UNV 101 class took the lead to share responsibility for online security by promoting cybersecurity awareness.

The students worked in groups to create a poster and two videos that highlight three distinct cybersecurity-related issues.

As you may have heard by now, there’s a huge Web vulnerability called Heartbleed out there that can allow an attacker access to the memory of a server or client, including a server’s SSL private keys. What does this mean for those of us that depend on privacy and security in our everyday online interactions? We decided that there would be no one better to ask than Dr. Darren Hayes, Seidenberg’s expert in cyber security. He stated that,

“Heartbleed could be the biggest Web vulnerability ever discovered. The problem is that the vulnerability has been around for two years now, so we have no idea what information could have been stolen from big name companies. Furthermore, the message for customers is problematic because a user cannot rush to change his or her password until the Website has patched their system and purged old keys used to encrypt data. Our confidence in transacting business on banking and retail sites and checking our email with well-known service providers has essentially been shattered. Hopefully, companies will keep their customers updated on what is happening and inform their customers on best practices for security.”

It’s important for users to change their passwords on sites that have been approved. There are lists, such as this one on CNET, that state which sites are safe and which could still be vulnerable. Take the weekend to sort through your accounts to make sure your information is secure.

“In reality there is no one ‘best way’ to defend against cyber attacks because the path towards safe computing practices that could thwart attacks has been lengthy, evolving and unclear.” Read more

How should congress approach cybersecurity? And how do agencies like the FTC choose which corporations to attack when cybersecurity falters, especially when there are so few solid legal codes in place? Another of Prof. James Gabberty’s articles on the topic has been published on “The Hill’s” Congress blog; this article specifically discusses the FTC’s lawsuit against Wyndham and the resulting call to policy scrutiny. Gabberty continually publishes articles for “The Hill” and is an active part of the conversation that surrounds congress’ role in cybersecurity. His article from February, available here, also considers politics and information security.